ARTICLES ABOUT CURIOSITY BY DATE - PAGE 3

MOSCOW (Reuters) - Europe and Russia signed a deal on Thursday for a joint Mars mission which will bore beneath the Red Planet's surface for soil samples they hope will solve the mystery of whether there is life beyond Earth. Europe's space agency had hoped to work with NASA on the two-spacecraft ExoMars mission but turned to the Russians after the U.S. agency pulled out due to budget shortfalls. The announcement comes amid heightened excitement over the search for life on the planet in our solar system most like Earth after scientists said analysis from NASA's own mission rover, Curiosity, showed Mars had the right ingredients for life.

CAPE CANAVERAL, Florida (Reuters) - NASA's Mars rover Curiosity, dispatched to learn if the planet ever had ingredients for life, drilled its first bit of powder from inside a potentially water-formed ancient rock, scientists said on Wednesday. The robotic geology station, which landed inside a giant impact basin on August 6 for a two-year mission, transferred about a tablespoon of rock powder from its drill into a scoop, pictures relayed by the rover Wednesday showed. "We're all very happy to get this confirmation and relieved that the drilling was a complete success," Curiosity engineer Scott McCloskey of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, told reporters on a conference call.

Feb 12 (Reuters) - Spike-haired Bobak Ferdowsi, the NASA flight engineer popularly known as the "Mohawk Guy," is boldly going where few space geeks have gone before. Veronica McGregor, a spokeswoman for the U.S. space agency's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, confirmed on Tuesday that Ferdowsi had been invited to join first lady Michelle Obama to watch the president's annual State of the Union address to Congress. He will be there among other Americans that President Barack Obama wants to highlight on Tuesday night, McGregor said.

* Rover looking for ingredients needed for life * Drill obtains samples from inside rocks By Irene and Klotz CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. Feb. 9 (Reuters) - The Mars rover Curiosity drilled into the Martian surface for the first time as part of an effort to learn if the planet most like Earth in the solar system ever had conditions to support microbial life, NASA said on Saturday. Pictures beamed back to Earth on Saturday showed a hole about 0.63 inches (1.6 cm) wide and 2.5 inches (6.4 cm)

WASHINGTON, Feb 9 (Reuters) - For the first time, NASA's rover Curiosity used its on-board drill to collect a sample of Martian bedrock that might offer evidence of a long-gone wet environment, the U.S. space agency reported on Saturday. Drilling down 2.5 inches (6.4 cm) into a patch of sedimentary bedrock, Curiosity collected the rock powder left by the drill and will analyze it using its own laboratory instruments, NASA said in a statement. This is the first time a robot has drilled to collect a Martian sample.

Following is a summary of current science news briefs. Satellite captures "black marble" view of Earth at night SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Almost 40 years to the day after the Apollo 17 crew snapped the famed "blue marble" image of Earth floating in space on December 7, 1972, NASA has unveiled "black marble" video views of the planet by night. The cloud-free pictures, taken with a high-resolution visible and infrared imager aboard a NASA and National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration satellite, capture the night lights of Earth in unprecedented detail.